My name is Jessica (fondly known as Jess/Jessie), and I am a registered counsellor, trauma-aware meditation teacher, and holistic consultant.

My Story—

My path to the helping profession began when I faced a sudden health crisis in my 20s. After years of pushing through injury, illness and burnout as a classical ballet dancer and teacher, I was stopped in my tracks by an autoimmune condition. In the months that followed, disappointing interactions with teams of specialists and practitioners left me feeling isolated, dismissed and depressed. It was clear that there was a significant divide between the impersonal care I received and the healing outcomes I hoped for.

I knew there had to be another way.

Unwilling to accept the status quo, I spent the following years learning about holistic approaches to healing and their researched benefits for treating complex health conditions. There was no going back. My eyes were opened to an integrated approach to treatment, emphasising the connection between mind, body and self. These experiences led me to academic study, exploring integrative nutrition and counselling, and ultimately, starting my private practice.

After years of living in a loop of unrelenting standards, anxiety and illness, I thought I had ended the cycle.

Fast-forward to late 2019 and picking up OG COVID while supporting students at an international ballet competition in Barcelona. Weeks went by as I was bedridden, barely able to walk, speak or swallow. Over the coming months, though my health slowly improved, I was left with lingering symptoms, including debilitating fatigue. This post-viral fatigue, I later learned, is a hallmark of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis and what we now know as Long COVID.

In what felt like deja vu, I revisited a medical system that offered little hope and healing.

While my understanding of integrative nutrition and prioritising my mental health enabled partial recovery, I was once again dragging myself through my days. I knew something was missing in my approach, so I scoured the internet for information, participated in medical trials, spent thousands on supplements, was hooked up to IVs and joined experimental research groups until one day...

I was introduced to Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI).

PNI combines neuroscience, psychology, and immunology and studies how the brain, nervous system, and immune system interact to affect behaviour and health. I had found my missing puzzle piece. After many months of healing and self-work, I furthered my academic studies in neuroscience, focusing on biomedical meditation and, most recently, postgraduate study in holistic psychotherapy. Knowing I could no longer participate in an industry defined by its outdated, unhealthy standards and competitiveness, I stepped back from teaching elite classical ballet, instead focusing on training dance educators to become more trauma-aware and holistic in their approach. These shifts transformed my health and counselling practice, allowing me to offer a uniquely holistic approach steeped in science, compassion, and lived experience. I see my health, life and practice as an ever-evolving process and I am so very grateful to be living my ikigai.